The Flight of Aires
by AirPen
Summary: Aires has been betrayed by the ones he loved, thrown into a world that wants him dead or captured. The Flock are close behind but are they fast enough to save Aires and the world he is destined to destroy? Set after MR4, please R&R.
1. Loyalty

**Disclamer: I don't own any of James Patterson's ideas though I love his mind, characters and everything that allows him to write great stories. The character Aires is mine but the situation he is in is based around the events of the MR books so don't rip off his work or he'll send people round to your house. Bad people.**

**Background: I've been writing stories for about 7 years (I'm only 15 :P) and I'm writing my own book so I though this would be a chance to stretch my literate muscles and get some feedback on my work. So please please please leave a comment of what you think of my first published fanfic. **

The Flight of Aires

Chapter 1

Loyalty

From across the desk, Marrian Janssen looked hard at the two geneticists she had selected for this assignment. They were a married couple and were perfect for the job at hand. Motivation was also there, sources had brought to her attention that the husband in this relationship was infertile.

"I understand it that the both of you had volunteered for this assignment." The two of them nodded, no words. "This is not as simple as it seems on paper, there may be....morel implications to your duty. And might I point out that you are doing this for the good of the company, not your desire to have a child. Do I make myself clear?" Two more nods. The Director sighed and looked over the two profiles on the desk in front of her.

Angela King. Has been with the Avian Genetics program for 11 years working beneath Dr ter Borcht. Met husband Derrick on the job and soon married. Donated material to aid the creation of one of the 6 proposed Avian-Human hybrids but failed at screening, both rendered infertile due to unknown reasons. Were put forward for this assignment by Dr ter Borcht. Labeled as extremely useful to the company.

The Director looked at Angela with something similar to recognition. She was a self made woman from poor beginnings, much like herself, her father a drunk and mother died not long after her tenth birthday. She sailed through school with some of the best qualifications in the United Kingdom, attended Cambridge and walked away with a PhD and a wide array of masters. She was recruited straight into Itexicon's genetics program and has been involved in several breakthroughs of the twenty first century. Her husband however was something of a gray man, ever present in the lab but of no real importance, out of the two of them Angela was the shining star.

"Very well, this is your assignment, The Aires Project" Janssen passed over a laminated file, the word AIRES punched into the plastic. The Kings began to look through the array of formula for the serum and what took up a large portion of their time was the test subject. The selected subject had been abandoned at one of the countries many maternity wards, barely a few hours old, it had been a simple matter to persuade the doctors to produce a premature death certificate and dig a fake grave. "We are looking at how DNA might be integrated into normal humans, your job will be to act as surrogates to the child, give it a normal life and when the time comes we will collect the information that the test has produced."

"When will we begin?" The Director let the smallest of smiles pass her lips as Mrs King displayed a mirror of what Marrian Janssen was a few years ago.

"He is waiting for you downstairs." The Kings stood and exchanged quick nods with their boss. "But let me make this clear. This is not your child, this child is the property of Itex and will remain as such until he is retired. When we tell you it is time to let go of him you will do so without question. I'm afraid that any deviation on your part will result in unfortunate outcomes." Derrick looked like he might open his mouth but a quick glance from his wife informed him otherwise.

"Thank you Miss Janssen, we'll be in touch." Angela King turned and left the office as fast as her icy demeanor would allow her. But beneath the cold businesswoman lay the morel and political turmoil of an adoptive mother to be. When the time came, and it would, her work in the lab had assured it, would she be ready to let go of her only chance to be a mother. Even as she stepped into the back of the taxi that would lead her to her new life, her new son in the crook of her arm snoozing, she couldn't answer that question.


	2. Prepare for landing

**Note: I'll be adding the chapters gradually as I need to type them out of my note books, but I guess it will be a good way of keeping people interested.**

Chapter 2  
Prepare for landing

Not many noticed me creeping through the back of the school hall toward the golden cascade of hair that was Gemma Proudmore. Even from this far back I could smell the scent of her perfume, jasmine. My pent up teenage hormones couldn't take much of it in one gulp. With a brief check I advanced toward her seat, drawing a few glances from the back row as I approached. This was it, 5 weeks of recon, espionage and mostly painful work came down to this one moment. I went forth to return a hero among men or go up in a fireball of embarrassment and jasmine smelling smoke.  
"Gemma" She looked round and frowned at me sitting on the floor behind her chair as the head teacher ranted on about something.  
"Air, what are you doing?" Oh, she used my pet name, good sign.  
"I was wondering if err, you might consider, well you know.." Bugger! Don't clam up, think of the perks! "If you might come out with me tonight." There it was, make of break. My dignity laid down before the line between me and boys. To anybody watching you'd think I was proposing a marriage.  
"Yeah, sure." I blinked.  
"Sorry?"  
"Yeah I'll go out with you tonight." She smiled at me as I tried and failed spectacularly to speak. "Meet at the cinema, 6 o'clock?" I nodded dumbly. "See you then." She gave me another dazzling smile and turned back to the front. Suddenly aware of the twenty or so faces looking at me crouched behind Gemma's chair I stood and walked swiftly toward the door, a few whispers following me out. It took everything I had not to scream as I stood in the foyer, dumbstruck. She'd said yes! I was going out with Gemma Proudmore!  
Beep, Beep.  
I looked down at my watch, one thirty. I headed for the boys toilets just off the foyer and sat myself down in one of the unoccupied cubicles. From my belt I took a small Velcro pouch, it was similar to something diabetes sufferers carried but this was for a rare disease that if I ignored would kill me in a week. I was diagnosed on my tenth birthday when I blacked out and went into cardiac arrest, ever since I've had to inject myself three times a day like clockwork. The modified Epipen injector was bruised and battered but it had been with me ever minute of my life since my diagnosis. The needle barely registered as I stuck it into my femoral artery and the cartage discharged and popped out the top. I packed the pen away and reach down to pick up the discharged cartage. I stopped and frowned at the piece of thin plastic, it was red, not the usual blue. The doctor might have reloaded the pen with different meds, I'd have to check it wasn't going to mean any surprises like I had the first time I started. With that out of the way I headed out toward my next lesson, and as I walked I couldn't help remembering the smell of jasmine.

"I'm home!"  
I dropped my bag onto the kitchen island and picked an apple out of the fruit bowl.  
"Hi Air." Dad appeared round the corner with a tower of washing in his arms. "Good day?" He headed into the utility room and vanished from sight.  
"Yeah, not bad, I'm going out later. Wheres mum?" I took a bite of apple and chewed on the soft fruit.  
"In the loft, trying to find the suit cases for my business trip." I nodded with mild interest and headed upstairs. I didn't see dad as he looked round the corner of the utility room and gave me a hard calculating look as I vanished up the steps.  
"Hiya sweety. Haven't see your fathers suit cases have you?" Her disembodied voice came through the roof hatch.  
"Your asking me to find something?" I chuckled. "You have to joking"  
"I did think it was a long shot." She admitted. "Heard your going out tonight, I want you back before eleven."

I retreated into my shower and spent a long time standing under the pounding water thinking about what the coming night with Gemma was going to be like. I don't know why but all all of a sudden it felt fake all of a sudden, all the preparation and work had come down to half a sentence which I had totally screwed up and by some miracle she had said yes. Was I doing this to be with Gemma or was she to be a hood ornament of my "conquests" through my teenage years.  
"Ow!"  
I jerked my arm over my shoulder and winced as a cramp ratcheted over my back. It felt like my shoulder blade had rubbed against another section of bone and it hurt like crazy. I spent a good five minutes standing in the running water, waiting for the pain to ebb away. Growing pains. Even if I was six foot tall already didn't mean I wouldn't fill out some more. And there was no way I was going to let growing pains ruin my date.

"You administered the primer?" The cold mechanical voice of the Uber-Director, or more correctly what was left of him, set Angela King's teeth on edge.  
"Yes sir, we slipped into his normal injections."  
"Excellent, all of my predecessors seemed too dependent on other plans rather than having patience with this master plan. And all of them thwarted by the very things we created, I think it is only poetic that they help with one." An inhuman chuckle, like bolts rattling in a can made King wince.  
"Aires is going out tonight, but the primer shouldn't begin working until after twelve hours of activation." The Director might have been reduced even further from his Plexiglas containment unit but he still held the capacity to sneer.  
"You named it? You named the animal?"  
"He is.."  
"Mrs King, you appear to have gone soft. Maybe I should consider sending in a retrieval team to take the subject off you hands before we have a problem as a result of your....sentimentality." The woman took a breath and welled up the reservoir of power and authority she had used to throw her subordinates from one end of the lab to the other. When she spoke again, ice would have appeared on The Director's visi-screens had she been facing him.  
"Sir, myself and my husband took this assignment on the behest of Miss Janssen and with the interest of the company in mind. Though we have formed close ties with Aires, we will act accordingly with Itexicon's wishes. And if you think that we are truly selfish, the 14 years of work and commitment we have put into the project would dictate that." There was a long silence until The Director spoke again.  
"Very well, inform the retrieval team within three weeks or I will send them for you." The line went dead and Angela was left in the loft of her home alone. She began to cry, what she had feared for 14 years coming to fruition in one phone call. Luckily the thick insulation smothered her sobs and her son's exit below her.


	3. High Fever

**Note: OK, have got everything typed up now, will be adding each one when I can. Please leave some reviews so I can get some feedback off you guys :)**

Chapter 3  
High Fever

"Hi." I walked up behind Gemma and grinned. I instantly realized that was probably my best chance of a kiss if I'd been quick enough. Damn!  
"Hey, I've already got the tickets." She handed me one of the tickets and held my hand tightly. Oh god, major awkwardness alert.  
"Thanks. Err, you want some popcorn or something?" I held open the door as we went inside.  
"Nachos, and a chilli pot." I looked her up and down, her small body not letting onto the fact that she might deviate from the fat free diets of some the school girls.  
"Really? You like that kind of thing?" She raised a skeptic eyebrow. "You don't really strike me as a.." Say something you idiot! "...foodie"  
"I work out." I made it a point not to say much else until we were sat in the screen waiting for the movie to start.  
"You get up to much?" I took a sip of coke and undid the top button of my shirt. Ever since we'd come in I had felt like I was hot. Would it kill to turn on the air con?  
"Little gym, Dad's a physiotherapist so he's always bugging me to keep fit. What do your parents do? Hardly anyone knows much about you at school."  
"Dad works with some big medicine company, Mum stays at home but she used to work in the same place." I took another gulp of coke. "I used to do some track a little while ago."  
That got her attention.  
"You ran?"  
"Sprinter, won the district sports twice for 100 meters. Can't anymore though cos' of these." I showed her the pouch on my belt. "Some rare blood disease, as soon as my heart rate goes too high I spark out. When your trying to blow the candles out on your tenth birthday its not usual to have a heart attack."  
"Mind if I look?" I handed her the injector and she looked it over. "I've never seen anything like this, whats in the cartages?"  
"Some cocktail mixed up but the doctors, it keeps me alive, thats all I care."  
The movie started and we settled down to watch. It was your typical military warfare film, lots screaming and explosions and the odd touching moment between the men as they blew each other up. But each explosion and scream felt loader than it should, like the speakers were plugged direct into my ear drums Bright colors made me wince as my retinas buzzed in protest. The drinks were long gone and I sat panting in my chair, trying to fight off the heat that was creeping out from my heart.  
"You OK? Aires?" I registered Gemma's face but not her voice which mingled with the sounds of the film which had risen to a din.  
"I need some air." I staggered to the end of the row and clawed along the wall as protests of spilt drink and popcorn followed me. I burst out into the corridor and slid down the wall holding my pounding head. My vision was fraying at the edges and I screwed the heels of my hands into my lids.  
"Aires! Whats wrong?" Someone took hold of my shoulders and gripped me tightly. Bile rose in the back of my throat and all I could do was moan in response. "Look at me Air." Gemma gently pulled my hands away from my face. I was blind, the dark smear of Gemma's face was all I could see on a black background.  
"Oh my God." Light figures ran over my eyebrows. "Aires, whats happening to you. Come on! I need your help here." What she said next was lost to the ringing that smothered all other sound, I was in agony. Hands lifted me up and carried me away, their contact making me yell out as my nerves were lit on fire. Cold air hit my face and for a second I could see the lit up sign of the taxi rank opposite. Every part of me was alight, roasting my skin and innards with a fire only I could feel. I was hauled onto the back of the taxi and I could feel the movement. Gemma's cool hands held me in my seat and I think she was talking to me. Then a fresh pain, nothing like anything any human had felt before, slashed across my back. Like flaming swords, cleaving twin slices from my flesh. I screamed, a sound that some animal spread out by millions of years of evolution might have made long ago. Warm wetness spread over the skin of my back and my very bones felt the cool air. If I were to look round I would have seen a delicate folded frame of bone with only a thin layer of skin as it had burst through the flesh of my back. Deep inside my brain a new set of chemical markers were sent out across my body, damage control orders. My eyes rolled up into my head, body shutting down, a young girls desperate voice and then blackness.


	4. Shattered

**WARNING: Suggestive domestic abuse here**

Chapter 4  
Shattered

"What are we going to do?" Gemma could hear the Kings as they spoke in the room opposite the kitchen where they had taken Aires. Both of them thought the locked door would stop her from listening in. But Gemma wasn't going to leave without some answers.  
"What else can we do?" Mr King's voice was simple and matter of fact, he might have been responding to a comment on the weather. His wife's voice held more emotion.  
"We can't." A small sob punctuated her speech. "He's our son!"  
"To them he isn't anything. And they won't ask for him they'll take him." Gemma heard a rattling gasp from inside the room.  
"Your just going to let him go? He's your son!"  
"No he isn't, he's a job." There was a long silence, broken only by a twin moan from Aires as he lay unconscious and his mother.  
"Your heartless. You will see him thrown in a cage!" There was a stifled scream and the sound of something being thrown to one side.  
"Listen to me." Derrick's voice had become an evil hiss. "If we don't give him to them they will take him and kill us. And I won't see you kill yourself for this half breed!"  
"He's my son!" She sobbed.

The snap of a palm striking flesh rang out like a gunshot. Then there was another.

"HE IS A FREAK! A HALF BREED AND A MISTAKE! AND IF YOU WON'T SAVE YOURSELF I WILL HAVE NOTHING MORE TO DO WITH YOU!" The final strike made Gemma shudder. Derrick King stormed from the room, his palm red and his shirt bloody from the blood of his now rejected son. He spared nothing a glance as he left, he simply walked away to his coat and slammed the door behind him, abandoning his family.  
Gemma stood and went into the living room, gently pushing the oak door open which had splinted at the lock with the force of Mr King's exit. Angela lay on the floor next to the sofa which bore a pale and sickly Aires, great sobs wracking her body. Gemma knelt down and helped Angela into a sitting position propped up against the sofa. Her face was red and her front was bloody but her fists were held tight at her sides.  
"I'm alright." She murmered  
"We need to call the police, he hurt you." Angela shook her head and a sharp laugh escaped a bloody mouth.  
"No, there's not police force on earth that would dare arrest anyone working for Itex." She stood and dabbed at her lips with the sleeve of her jumper. "Go home Gemma, don't tell anyone what you saw and lead a normal life." She turned her back on the girl and lent over Aires and adjusted the bandages she had criss crossed over the open wounds in his back.  
"Hang on a minute. I'm not leaving here without some answers. What the hell happened to Aires, and why aren't you at a hospital? He could die here!" Angela didn't pay her any attention. "Look at me! Or I'll call the police!" The woman turned and looked the girl in the face, Gemma quailed at the fierceness in her eyes which left her wondering how she could have let her husband strike her.  
"I won't tell you again to leave. Because in about twenty minutes a retrieval team will turn up and kill everything in this house, so go home Gemma, and don't try and find us. Now get out, I have work to do." The girl opened her mouth to speak but a flattened palm struck her in the side of the head, she crumpled instantly. "I'm sorry."

Angela left the house in under three minutes, bundling some essentials into the car and placing a timed charge beneath the cooker. When the retrieval teams van arrived the house was surrounded by firemen and police as they doused the last of the flames which had destroyed the house. They watched and waited for a while before moving off, trying to track the two rogues.

Angela left Gemma Proudmore on the steps of her home and shot her full of Sodium Penithol, the last 12 hours would be a blur and when she went to school the next day she was bewildered by the absence of Aires along with everyone else. She didn't remembered Aires' transformation that night and led a perfectly normal life. Apart from a strange snippet of memory which she would dream about for months later, seeing two bright yellow eyes looking at her and someone whispering a name which escaped her. She now lives with her husband Alex and son Aires.


	5. On Wing and Prayer

Chapter 5  
On wing and prayer

_Max, adjust your heading 4 degrees east.  
Max banked slightly and the flock followed her round in near perfect formation.  
They had been flying for nearly 4 hours and so far all they could say about their destination is that it was in the east. Somewhere.  
__Anything you ought to be telling me Voice? Like where we're going.  
__It's me sweetheart. _Oh great, Daddy was in charge of this particular venture._ And you're heading for an airport.  
The tickets are waiting for you at the desk.  
Max noticed the second Voice enter the conversation. One was bad enough and she didn't know who this one was.  
__Excellent, we should all be meeting up soon enough.  
__Not me however, I have to stay at my post as long as possible._ Max rolled her eyes.  
_Hey, my head isn't a telephone exchange.  
__Sorry sweetheart. _Jeb actually sounded sorry, even with his expressionless voice.  
I'_ve got to go, we should be moving soon. Meet you soon honey. _Honey! The Voice called Jeb honey!  
_Honey? You have got to be kidding Jeb. _Max heard what could probably be the equivalent of a telepathic nervous laugh.  
_I've got to go; I'll see you at Heathrow. _Well that sorted out where they were heading.  
"We're going to London guys!" Cheers greeted this little announcement.  
"Can we go to Harrods?" Total poked his head out of the baby carrier on Gazzy's back; he'd been holed up there since he'd got tired of flying. "I would love to get a new scarf."  
"Oh and what about that toy shop, they have a stuffed giraffe in there that's like 20 feet tall!" Max looked over at Nudge and raised an eyebrow.  
"Ok, you can carry it then."  
"It would be cool though." Nudge looked pleadingly at Fang who raised his hands in submission. The little swot.  
"Max, I'm hungry. Can we rest for a while?" Gazzy sidled up beside Iggy and let their wing tips brush so he knew he was there.  
"Ok, next town we grab a bite to eat then keep going, I want to get to London ASAP." More cheers at the prospect of food.  
_You can't keep stopping Max; this is your most important assignment yet. _The Voice, not Jeb gave this little nugget of wisdom.  
_Well I'll make you a deal, you tell me what's going on and I'll hurry up. And knowing who is messing with my family would help. The _Voice sighed, suddenly losing the expressionless robot voice. When it spoke again it was a woman who replied  
_I'm afraid it's still too dangerous to tell you that Max, but your father and I are so proud of you. You're going to save the world.  
_

___________Somewhere in the Chiltern Hills  
England_

It took 3 weeks for my fever to break. Those three weeks were the worst of my life to date.

Cold sweats were replaced with blistering temperatures that felt like they would melt my brain from my head. Migraines followed hallucinations of nightmarish landscapes crawling with monsters. Muscles and bone twisted and fused beneath my skin, pain ratcheting through with each twist of tissue. The two protrusions in my back continued to grow and every time I woke after a few hours of snatched sleep downy feathers covered my pillow and covers. My back sent spasms of pain around my entire body and it felt like it was rebelling against itself, fighting with the new part of me that I still couldn't see.  
Mum came in every now and again, tipping water and some kind of gel down my neck that helped to take some of the pain away from my back, it also substituted as food. She sat on the edge of my bed and rubbed my face with a wet towel, trying to keep me in the land of the living. She spoke to me but the words didn't reach my ears. Sometimes she'd sit there laughing, others crying, others just looking at me as I lay in the bed. She spent a lot of time outside my small room where ever we were holed up, somewhere in the woods, I could smell the woods outside when the window was open. Something in me wanted out of this tiny room and its bare walls, it wanted air and space and freedom.  
But now I needed rest, just rest.

My eyes were the first things to switch back on; unfortunately my brain took a little while to catch up. The ceiling came into view and for some reason I could pick out the tiniest cracks in the ancient paintwork. My senses booted up like an old computer, being dusted off after years in an attic. But keeping with that image, my brain had been overhauled. Every sense was sharpened to perfection. I lay there, my brain caught up with every new sense and processed it through sluggish synapses, I could hear the mice beneath my bed, someone breathing in the next room, could see the room it was day even if the world outside was pitch black, my skin felt electrified. I tried to move and though my joints ached I kicked the covers off. I was naked beneath the sheets but a set of blue scrubs were thrown in one corner. I dropped my legs over the edge of the bed and sat on the filthy mattress, trying to bring my body up to speed with everything else. There wasn't a mirror in the room but I looked myself up and down on my bed with awe. My shoulders had broadened out and my previously flat belly had been replaced with reams of muscle. What the hell happened to me while I was out of it? I stood up and went over to the scrubs, throwing them on and heading for the door over the cold stone floor.  
The door opened before I even got close and my mother stood there, eyes red but a warm smile on her face. She wrapped my up in her arms and squeezed the life out of me.  
"Air, oh my baby. I was so afraid you were never going to wake up." I slowly returned the hug and she let me go. "Come on, you need to drink." She turned away and left me trying to work out what she had touched on my back. Something that was part of me but I couldn't make sense of. The living room of the house was at best ram shackle. The walls were riddled with cracks and water marks covered the ceiling, a few were looking in danger of weakening the already rotten struts. A log fire provided the only source of light and heat. Mum was leaning over it, filling a battered kettle with water and hanging it over the fire. "Sit down; you don't want to be doing too much already." She sat down on one of the moth eaten sofas and I joined her, the fire warming me up. An awkward silence stretched out between us.  
"Where's Dad?" She tried to keep her face but her hand rose to her cheek. "Where is he?"  
"Your father won't be with us for a while." She smiled at me, I didn't smile back.  
"What did he do to you?" Her face plummeted. I didn't miss the light scar on her lip that hadn't been there before. "Did he hit you? You can tell me." Suddenly her face hardened.  
"Derrick did hit me. And he won't be getting away with it." I stared at her, one second she was playing the defeated wife, the next she looked ready to tear my head off. "Your father abandoned us Aires. Don't forget that,"  
"What do you mean abandoned? And what the hell happened to me? Why are we in the middle of the woods?" The kettle began to whistle but neither of us made a move to take it off the heat.  
"Listen to me very carefully Aires. Me and your father did something terrible to you but I am going to fix it. I swear to you." _Crack. _Both of our heads turned toward the door. "Douse the fire. Now!" I snatched up the kettle and threw it over the fire. The cabin was thrown into instant darkness and I pressed myself into the wall beside the door, waiting for whatever was going to come through the door. "Aires, move." A vice like hand pulled me from the door and threw me to the back of the cabin. With my improved night vision the outline of my mother standing between me and the door with a pistol reached my retinas but not my brain. Silence reigned the cabin. The door flew off its hinges and slammed to the floor, scattering dust and fragments of wood everywhere including at me. Shapes moved through the doorway, flashing torches.  
"There he is!" A voice yelled. Mum raised the pistol and fired in rapid angry bursts. Shapes flew back out through the doorway and didn't get up. Another shot was fired from a different gun but only succeeded in blowing a hole in the ceiling. In less than ten seconds she was turning her back on 4 dead bodies. She snapped open a Zippo lighter and her stony face was illuminated by the flame.  
"You killed them!" That was all I could manage.  
"They would have killed us first." She said fiercely. "We have to split up, you can go places I can't. Take this." She pushed a leather-bound book into my hands and a wallet. "The card in there is untraceable and will give you all the money you'll need. The PIN is in there too. Go to London, The Savoy Hotel. Be there for 10:30 tomorrow, look for a man called Alan Atridge, he can keep you safe." She left me standing there staring at the bodies, all piled up on the steps. In the dim light I could see she had shot one of the men in the face, his right eye was a pulpy mess and blood was running out of the back of his head.  
"Oh God." I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. "Why did this happen to me?" Mum took my face in my hands.  
"Because your unique, and I will keep you safe, even if I'm not there." She reached over her head and lifted her rosary off her neck. She pressed it into my hands. "We will see each other again. I swear it." She held me tight and I choked back tears, the beads of wood held tight in my hands. She pulled away and held out the pistol. "Now run!"

The trees raced past me in a flurry of mossy trunks, I ran barefoot over stones, branches and God knows what else. The pain in my feet was nothing compared to the terror that pursued me through the slowly lightening woods. It had picked my scent a little while back but now it was right on my tail, pounding through the woods after me. When I caught a glance of the freakish half woman half wolf I had poured on the speed, racing faster than any human could ever run. But the other creature was just as fast and more relentless then a bloodhound. The rosary was clutched in one hand and the gun in the other, the book and wallet forced into the now torn scrubs. I came out into a clearing and skidded to a halt, gulping in each breath as my body screamed for oxygen.  
"Getting tired little birdie?" A cackle that sent a shiver down my spine came from my left, just inside the darkness of the woods. "Lie down, rest." This time from my right. I raised the gun and held my ground, even if my hands shook and my knees threatened to buckle beneath me. "And let me have you all to myself." I couldn't hear where the voice was coming from. I was frozen on the spot. "You must be special from the others, to let me out of my cage they must have....a reason." I clutched the rosary in my hands and twisted the beads. I'd never been religious but I'd had my moments when I would sit and think about if there was someone looking over us. Well there better be; because thats who I needed.

_The Lord is my Shepard; I shall not be in want._

"What makes you so special? Hmmm. You smell like all the others, you have the wings."

_He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside clear waters,_

"I do love to have a little fun with you avians, try to fly away with broken wings but you don't get far."

_He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness, for His names sake._

"But maybe, I might choose to miss hear them this time. Bring them a body instead of a bird boy."

_Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death,_

"And accidents do happen."

_I will fear no evil._

A noise to my left! The gun drew up in a perfect arc and brought its aim up to bare on the creature as it flew from the trees at me. Its mouth turned into a surprised 'O' and I fired. The things head snapped back, the bullet traveling faster than sound struck it at a range of no further than half a metre and reduced its skull to bloody pulp. The body hit the ground and rested at my feet, blood began to pool at my feet and between my toes. I turned way from the cooling body, expecting to feel some kind of release from the killing of this monster. I didn't.  
All I felt was terror, and fury.

Far away, deep in the side of a mountain that held no name and according to maps and charts didn't exist, the Uber Director observed the hybrid through his nano-cameras as they hovered in the air over the woods.  
"Interesting, he is quite a specimen." The man in the other view screen nodded.  
"I did say that Maria wouldn't stop him, this one is different from the others, more strategic, more robust." The Uber Director replayed the movement the hybrid had made, his buffers could barely handle the optical data and slow it down sufficiently to actually see it.  
"What is your view of the situation?" Derrick King had got used to giving the UD advice, his brain functions hadn't handled the transfer into the Mainframe very well.  
"I think we should let him intercept Atridge, I don't see why Angela sent him to Alan, after all, he's corrupt to the core. And we may have a chance to pick the hybrid up once Alan has had his way."  
"I don't think that we will need him actually. I believe that you collected a seminal sample from him before you left your post." Derrick's eyebrows raised into his neatly gelled hair.  
"You have been thinking about this very well Sir. Shall I inseminate the one we have in holding?" He was going to enjoy this.  
"Yes, immediately, with any luck we will have a replacement catalyst in less than 10 weeks!" The computer voice became a wave of static that Derrick interpreted as laughter.  
"The growth formula is still in the experimental stages."  
"Then it looks like we will be beginning trials early." The UD snapped off the visi-screen and the bank of computers within the mountain shut down.

Half way across the world, Derrick sat in the conference room of the England branch of Itex and thought. That was going to be the last little communiqué that UD was going to receive from Derrick King, or anyone for that matter. And what was that excuse for a human being going to do to him when he realises that he has just been locked in his own home? Complain to the Human Rights Committee?.  
Derrick King, Acting Director. It had a ring to it.

**Right, you've read that much, now some reviews would help me write the next bit. Thanks for reading so far!**


	6. Tea, Crumpets and Mutinous Dining Staff

Chapter 6  
Tea, Crumpets and Mutinous Dining Staff

London. One of the strangest cities in the world. People flock in millions to work here but few live and sleep within the city. The ancient values of the gentry mingle with chavs. Blokes in gold trimmed suits and top hats patrol the arcades. And within the Houses of Parliament the entire British government opens because an old man yells something in Latin and bangs on the front door with a gold stick. This was a city that either needs to catch up or simply wanted to keep a shiny buckled shoe in the past. So when I stepped off the train at Marylebone station I wasn't overly surprised to find an old man in robes tolling a bell next to the coffee shop.  
My new clothes kept most of the biting cold off me but with each breath everyone sent out billows of steam into the air like the trains that had brought them here. The trek out of the woods hadn't been too hard and before six in the morning I arrived in a small town and replaced all my clothes, paying with the card Mum had given me. I forced the idea of my Mother out of my head, last thing I needed was to be worrying about someone else beside myself.  
I knew the Savoy was on the Strand, not far from St James Park and Buckingham Palace. I was just a case of getting across the city. I made it very clear I was going nowhere near the tube system, last thing I needed was to been trapped in a tin can where anyone could leave a knife in my back and be done with it. I was travelling above ground today and a walk in the cool air will give me time to order my head out of this nightmare.  
I walked the coffee shop and scanned the area around me for anyone who might turn out to have a gun they were likely to use. A small reflection caught my eye and I leaned in to look at myself in the reflection of the shop window. I was a mess, my hair was way too long and matted like a shaggy dog, face caked with grime and God knows what else. But I realised what Gemma had been so scared of in the cinema a life time ago when she tried to help me. My eyes had changed colour, not blue but yellow. No iris or white, just a veined yellow that covered my entire eye and a pitch black pupil at its centre.  
"Just like a hawk." I murmured. I couldn't go out like this, if anyone was looking for me they would spot me in an instant. I looked around, a hat, anything to cover my eyes. A set of sunglasses was hanging off a bag on the next table over and the owner was looking the other way. I walked by, picking a tray up as I went and plucked them from the elastic in a quick movement. Unfortunately I hit him hard in the shoulder with the tray.  
"Watch it!" I slid the glasses into my pocket.  
"Sorry." I started to head away.  
"At least say it to my face you stupid child I… oh." I did look him in the face, after a moment I turned and walked away. Leaving the man with the image of my eyes seared into his retinas.

The Savoy itself was one of the most luxurious hotels in the world. So when I walked into the lobby, I stuck out like a sore thumb. The marble floors reflected my filthy face perfectly and as I traipsed toward the front desk the model sitting at the computer visibly flinched before putting on her auditioned smile.  
"Good morning sir, welcome to the Savoy. Do you have a reservation?" It was sickly enough to make your eyes water.  
"No I'm meeting someone, Alan Atridge. I was told to meet him." I adjusted my glasses and lent of the desk. "Would he be here?" The receptionist leafed through some papers idly before picking out a post-it note attached to photo.  
"Ah, Mr King, Mr Atridge is in our breakfast lounge. He says you are to have breakfast with him." Food? I second that motion.  
"Where would the lounge be?"  
"Along this corridor, you can't miss it. Enjoy your stay sir." I nodded my thanks and walked down along the corridor toward the lounge. As I looked back I saw the receptionist dusting off the desk with disinfectant where I had lent on it. Snobs.  
The entrance to the lounge was manned by a toff in a bright green suit and as I approached he opened the door.  
"Good morning sir."  
"Morning." I caught a whiff of the breakfast that was being served in the lounge and literally levitated into the room.  
Fresh crumpets, pancakes, croissants and a small mountain range of assorted jams, arranged to perfection over tables as long as limos. I was in heaven. In less than 20 seconds I had a plate filled with everything.  
"Aires!" I picked up a knife and stood stock still. A podgy hand rested on my shoulder. "I think we can put that down my boy. Your mother has asked me to look after you." Alan Atridge whispered in my ear and I set the knife down. "Come, I have a table." He steered me toward a table at the back of the lounge and I set my plate down.  
Alan Atridge was quite simply massive. His distended belly would rival most and the groan the chair made as it took his weight was like some kind of wounded animal. A small moustache adorned his top lip, the ends cut to points at the end. His cheeks were a flushed red and his balding head did nothing to stop him looking like a 007 villain. All he needed was a fluffy cat to be honest.  
"So, Aires. You finally manifested. About time too but after all, your mother was never wrong when it came to her research." Ok, that enough. I reached across the table and grabbed the fat man by the lapels of his tweed jacket.  
"Now listen to me very carefully. I have been chased through woods by a monster, had my house blown up, been shot at and woke up with a set of wings on my back. So drop the act and give me some answers before I make your day just as bad as mine." Atridge raised an eyebrow and cocked his head.  
"You are so like your mother." I threw him back into his seat and took a bite out of one of my crumpets, the first thing I had eaten in 36 hours.  
"She said I would be safe with you." Lord knows why  
"Makes since, there aren't many of us who know about you outside the Company." He crossed his arms over his ample belly and regarded me with a frown. "What's with the glasses?" I stopped chewing on the piece of croissant I had unceremoniously stuffed into my mouth.  
"You want to see?"  
"Yes." I set down the pastry and quickly dipped my glasses. "Hmm, a side effect, not terribly major."  
"Not terribly major? Want a look at my wings? I would class that as major." I replaced my glasses and bit down on another crumpet.  
"Well, the other subjects never exhibited any side effects, I guess this is specific to the treatment."  
"Others?"  
"Oh yes, there were others." A smile crept up along his lips. "They never told you did they?"  
"I'm not in the mood fatty." I growled.  
"Oh my, you are in for a wake up call my boy." The man rubbed his hands together impishly "You were a science experiment. One your adoptive parents were key figures in." Each word hit me like a sledgehammer, but one was like being hit by a truck.  
"Adopted? But they said I was a test tube baby, with their genes because Mum couldn't give give birth." The man's smile began to stretch off his face.  
"Angela and Derrick were infertile, totally unable to provide genetic material suitable for a child. You were abandoned at some hospital, we picked you up when our man found you as computable with the programs aims. Your 'parents' were simply there to keep an eye on you, administer the serum and turn you over to the company once you had manifested." A chuckle left his mouth. "Turns out Angela wasn't so keen on turning you over while Derrick was. Derrick had always been the one to remain objective, whatever the situation. He's been lined up to snatch power for years, some foul play was involved of course but Derrick is one of the most unique people I had ever met. You might say it was something he passed on."  
"Your lying, they couldn't have done this too me." I said this between gritted teeth but inside I felt the last memory of my mother coming up as I set out to flee the cabin in the woods.  
"_Me and your father did something terrible to you,"_ Something terrible. Was this it? Turning me into a freak of nature and setting me out into the world with nothing but empty promises and no protection from those who want me dead or worse.  
"Well, even if you did it doesn't mean much at this point." He reached deep into his tweed jacket. Oh God it was so 007 I nearly laughed.  
"You are such a prick." I looked down the barrel of the pistol as he hid it beneath his napkin.  
"Call me what you want Aires, but I believe that Angela gave you something of great importance to me. Empty your pockets." I threw the wallet and small note book I had been given. "Ah, back in my hands at last." He held the book up and grinned. "Angela stole this from my lab a few weeks before your primer was due to kick in, I was quite bewildered when it vanished. I bet you didn't even bother reading it." He leafed through the pages. "I worked quite closely with the other hybrids you know. Particularly their flying capability. You see, this is my life's work, right here. And my way to make a new breed of you. And dear old Angela has given you both to me in one neat little package." He snapped the book shut and I flinched. I was trapped under this man's podgy thumb, how the Hell was I so stupid. "And all we need now is a sample of DNA. Something I don't need you alive for." I screwed my eyes shut as he raised the pistol. This was it. What a waste.  
"Hot towel sir?" Were among the word I didn't expect to hear at this point. I opened an eye and looked up at the waiter standing beside Alan with a shiny serving tray balanced on his fingertips. The over all effect on Alan was something different all together.  
"Jeb? Jeb Batchelder?" I would have laughed if a gun hadn't been pointing at me.  
"Hello Alan." The service tray hit the back of Alan Atridge's with a resounding clang which made me wince. The tray was bent round the back of the fat man's head and looked like a sombrero as he fell forward into his crumpets with mundane finality.  
"I suggest you get moving, he won't be out of it long." Jeb said this in a matter of fact voice but the meaning was clear. I got up and went for the door. "Hey! You might want to read this." He threw the book over to me. "We'll be seeing each other soon enough." I caught a glimpse of white teeth and turned and ran, holding the book close to my chest as I ran from the madman.  
But the look on his face....priceless.


	7. Learner Badges for Angels

**Sorry I haven't posted in a while, the homework has been piling up and a case of the flu hasn't helped. Righto, thanks are going out from across the pond to girlytown for my first ever Fanfic review *Clapping*. Ok, its a smiley face but still cool and thanks :) Now, lets get down to business, there is flying to be done. ;) **

Chapter 7  
Learner Badges for Angels

I sat in St James Park, the sun was just starting to go down over the city and behind me Buckingham Palace was lit by floodlights. Below me the last of the days tourists were filtering out of the park and into the city, some pushing prams, many more holding hands in the crisp evening air which shifted the branches of the tree I was sitting in about 15 feet off the grass. I had spent most of the day here, hidden in the crook of a split elm tree, reading through the book I had snatched from Atridge before he put a hole in my chest. I had always liked reading books but this one was enough to put anyone off any illustrated storybook forever. Alan's neat handwriting filled the book from cover to cover, Polaroid photos stuck in beside diagrams and complex formula for I don't know what. One photo I had taken out of the book was of a small girl curled up in the bottom of a cage, head turned from the camera as two hands opened a set of downy wings on her back. The image held me captivated for a long time, who are you, where are you now? I could only hope for the best for my counterpart and worry about myself. I huddled my coat around me against the cold and turned to one of the pages marked 'Flight'

_After initial testing of each subjects instinctual nature I have finally reached a conclusion as to how they are capable of rudimentary flight, even in a confined space. The presence of genetic memory is the only avenue of thought that I can conclude to be the souse of their knowledge. However, this genetic memory is a trait that is more prominent in some of the subjects than others. The __Batchelder_ _child has already mastered rudimentary flight principals but the Griffiths subject is more clumsy during primary tests. It appeared to take a combination of either perseverance or gift to be able to fly, of course once this phase of the testing is complete I will ensure that this genetic memory is removed. No need to have our own subjects flying away. _

I wasn't even next to the man and I wanted to kill Atridge, the worst thing you can do to a bird, clip its wings. Around me everyone was leaving, and the main gates were due to shut in ten minutes. A small smile crept onto my lips, despite everything that had happened today. Well, here I was, in one of London's biggest parks, hardly anyone around, the gates were about to shut and I had the Flying for Idiots guide in my hand.  
This was going to be really interesting, or it would hurt.  
Last I heard, the ground doesn't like it when you crashed into it.

* * *

Brian Crofts had been a guard at St James Park for over 16 years, it had been his entire working life after loosing his job in the mines. It wasn't the best job in the world but it wasn't the worst either and he did have a love for gardens. He knew every inch of the park, able to walk every path in the pitch darkness for hours, a warm flash in his pack and a torch in his hand. So when he had turned from the gate and headed into the park he wasn't expecting to find what he saw just off from the east end of the lake. He heard the boy before he saw him, scrabbling up the trunk of a tree, snapping off a few branches on his assent. The entire tree shuddering as he scaled the tree with apparent ease once he was in the higher branches. Just as he straightened up on the upper reaches of the tree Brian opened his mouth to yell up to him. The words never left his lips and instead his mouth dropped open in shock.  
The boy jumped, arms outstretched into space as he fell.  
_He's going to kill himself! _The thought had just enough time to cross his mind before the extraordinary happened.  
A twin canopy of feathers spread out on each side of his body, catching the air like a red kite that would circle overhead on a clear day. The tan wings depicted perfectly in Brian's night vision, each feather a unique pattern as reams of muscle locked the amazing wings in place. The gamekeeper was in shock. A boy that could fly! An Angel!  
However up in the air it wasn't clear sailing.  
Apparently the boy was a surprised as Brian was and forgot to flap before sliding face first along the grass to a painful but harmless halt. Brian slid down behind a tree, scrabbling franticly in his pack for his camera. The super sensitive lens zoomed in on the boy as he sat up and rubbed his face free of mud and grass. He turned the dial to video capture and started shooting as the boy returned to the tree for round two, the state of the art camera picking out every feather of the boy's beautiful angel wings. The gamekeeper left twenty minutes later with a full data card and ran home. This was like nothing no human had ever seen and the world would know about it. Brian Crofts was going to change the world.  
Well, actually, his eleven year old daughter would.

* * *

Meanwhile, half the world away, The Flock, minus Akila unfortunately, was sitting in Norfolk International Airport waiting for the next flight to Heathrow.  
"I still can't believe we're going back to London!" Nudge hung on the edge of her seat and rocked back and forth beside Total as he rested on the next seat.  
"You've already been to London." Max pointed out, dropping a Burger King bag on the table and it suddenly vanishing into the midst of the Gazzy/Iggy huddle going on the next row.  
"The boys haven't."  
"You think Iggy, one of your heroes lived in London." A slightly glazed look passed over Ig's eyes.  
"Guy Fawkes, can you imagine all that gunpowder going up? BOOM!" He demonstrated with various arm movements.  
"Shame he tried to blow up the King." Max sat down next to Fang. "Hows the blog?" She lent over his shoulder and looked up and down the page.  
"I just got this reply from a kid in England." He turned the screen. The words 'READ THIS NOW!!!! URGENT!!!' painted quite a large picture of urgency.  
"You read it yet?"  
"About to." He clicked on the link.

From FeatherGirl2009  
To the flock, major urgency!  
My dad saw one of you here in London! Everyone is talking about it over here! Look at this!!!

Below the text was a video file. Fang clicked on it and without a word the entire Flock was soon looking at the film of a boy as he glided from tree to tree, a massive grin on his face, wings outstretched on each side. There wasn't any doubt that this was real, no CGI could match a real person that accurately.  
"Get the news up." Max managed, fixated on the boy as he laughed, wings dipping and swerving through the trees. With a few taps the BBC news was up and the live stream was running. A weather report was just finishing.  
"Thanks Alex." The reporter turned to the camera again. "More upcoming news now as we turn to Joan in St James Park where she is going to meet the boy we have all been hearing about this morning. Whether this is a trick or something we have never seen before, we are about to know. Over to you Joan." The camera changed to a woman in Prada clothes as she tried desperately to stay behind the armed police as they moved through the gates of the park.  
"Sam, as you can see we are the first into the park since the video was shot late last night. We are having to go in with police as we don't know what we are dealing with here but I assure you all, I have no doubt in my mind that this is something amazing." The officer in front motioned for them all to crouch down and the sound of clasps being released on weapons sounded like breaking ice. "There is something in the clearing up ahead. Men! Metal men are standing just a few feet from us round the corner."  
Itex was already there. Apparently the Flock weren't the only people to realize the significance of the film.  
"They're saying something." Joan extended her microphone toward the bend in the path. A tinny but none the less accurate voice was sent out across the airwaves.  
"Come with us or be incapacitated." There was a slight pause before the response.  
"Piss off!" The sound of something hard hitting the mechanical suits of armor sent a clang over the television. There was a whoosh as something huge shot over the trees before being intercepted by a net and brought crashing into the armed police and knocking them flying. The panicked face of a boy shot across the camera's view and Max's breath caught. The camera man trained his lens on the boy as he jumped up and tried to remove the tangled net from around his left leg. The robots were pounding round the corner after him just as the net fell away.  
"Stop now!" The suits surprisingly enough stopped at the ragged line of rifles and regarded their prey as it ran for its life, thinking it was safe behind a barrier of gun wielding coppers. The camera couldn't make up its mind who to look at, robo-men or bird kid. The sound of wings unfurling made the decision for him as 14 feet of tan wings with blood red tips shot out of the boys back, bearing him up into the air and to safety.  
The robots suddenly stiffened as new orders were beamed into their processors. The leader raised its forearms and two panels slid back to reveal two neat cylinders with bright blue nose cones. Bullets slammed into its delicate circuitry but with a last instruction the two tracker missiles launched after the boy trailing deadly blue smoke in their wake. The lights in the robots head dimmed but across London, the boy raced over the sky for his life.

Max looked at Fang as he shut the lid of the laptop.  
"We need to get to London."

* * *

I however wasn't having a very good time.  
My ankle had been torn up by the sharp edges of the net and was bleeding a lot. My left arm was limp and useless as I ducked and dived over the skyline. Oh, and two smart bombs were after me, that too.  
The blue smoke darted behind me as I banked sharply, pulling at my muscles like pitbulls fighting over a chew toy. The Strand lay out below me and I dived, hoping to break the lock the two missiles had fixed on me. Banners snatched for me, masonry rose up as I skimmed the walls on my belly, avoiding gutting myself by the barest of fractions on century old stone. Whoosh! Charring Cross Station. Whoosh! Kings College. I nearly broke my back as I arched round Fleet Street. I looked back and saw the winking nose cones of the missiles, about 10 feet behind me.  
Pull up! Nearly ended up as jam on the side of a lawyers flat. Wing tips brushed chimney pots, barrel rolling under a balcony, just trying to shake the missiles off me. St Paul loomed in front of me, the dome glistening in the early sun. People on the top balcony pointed in shock as I blew past them all, the missiles nearly knocking the heads off anyone not quick enough to duck.  
Back into the streets, these were filled with Christmas decorations that stretched over the road. I nearly garroted myself on an electrical cable and missiles nearly made the same mistake. Maybe this was my chance, snare them in the wires and wing like crazy.  
But what about the people below? How can I ensure they won't get hurt? I yelled and pulled up, damning my conscious and flying free of the streets, the missiles behind me.  
I hadn't eaten in 12 hours, I was tired and with each pass I was getting more likely to make a mistake and the blue smoke of the missiles haunted me. The situation was hopeless. I climbed sharply, slowing down a fraction but thats all it took for one of the bombs to shoot up beside my leg, the nose cone turning red and the jet stopping. With a yell I kicked out with my injured foot and sent the bomb spinning away before it reignited its engine and sped up to meet its partner. That was it, the detonation command overwrites the fuel, now how to contain the explosion in a city. The answer lay below me.  
A winding snake from up-above, stretching on to the sea in the east and the hills in the west, the backbone and beating artery of the entire city. The River Thames. And I was about to use it as a really big air bag.  
I folded my wings and plummeted, adrenaline flooding every pore of my being. For a second I wanted nothing more then to cry like a hawk, diving in for the kill. The pain that shot across my entire body as I pulled up made tears spring up into my eyes and the calm and deserted surface of the river would be as nice to fall into as concrete. The missiles was close behind, their ice cold blue cones filling my vision. They set on another burst of speed and drew level, the lights blinked red and the fuel cut from the engines, nothing but momentum keeping them moving. I heaved down with heavy wings and hit them full on, jarring my shoulders painfully but the two bombs plummeted into the water. I didn't have any time at all to run from the blast.  
A column of water 30 feet high rose out of the river like a grabbing hand, with me at its center. Thousands of gallons of water pounded into my wings, sending me crashing down into a world of water and churned mud. Every ounce of strength had been used up, my brain was playing tricks with my scenes and my body was beyond its limit, bird DNA or not. I floated on the current, listening to the deafening silence as the river returned to its calm after such a massive disturbance. I shut my eyes and thought of my normal life, before the wings, before the carnage and the hurt. I was ready to go, even if it was to a sub-standard grave.  
Then as usual someone has to spoil it all.  
A rough hand grabbed the back of my shirt and hauled me from the river. Sunlight! I retched up lungfuls of fouled river water onto the deck of the boat.  
"Its alright lad, we got you." Someone wrapped a blanket round me as I shivered and held me in a bear hug, trying to radiate some heat into me. "Get us back to port, this kid needs serious help."  
"Message from control, they want him at Grosvenor road."  
"What do they want with him?"  
"Dunno, but if they've got a warm bed for him its as good as he's going to get there." The boat turned back up river, waves lapping at the sides. The river swept past, people lined the wharfs and walks, staring at the little rescue boat as it headed up stream. I shut my eyes and slipped into dreamless sleep.


	8. Meeting the New Kid

Chapter 8  
Meeting the New Kid

"This is unreal." Nudge murmured, looking at the screen mounted on the wall of the cafe in the arrivals terminal of Heathrow airport.  
"The blog is going nuts." Fang looked over the top of the laptop and and glanced at the news as it was repeated for the third time in as many minutes. "Five thousand hits in the past half hour."  
"And a new development in the Angel Incident this morning." The reported took the piece of paper offered to him and read it through, his eyebrows slowing advancing up his head. "A group known only as The Flock have been located on the Internet hosting a blog." Max looked round at Fang who slammed the lid of the laptop shut suddenly. " According to the blog a group of children who match the description of the boy rescued from the Thames early this morning have been on the run for over 3 years from a company called Itexicon. The secret services have been able to provide these images of the children in question." Six rather detailed images appeared next to the reader, each of the Flock relaxing at Anne Walker's house. Max did a quick three sixty, several people in the cafe were looking at them curiously and one suddenly whipped out a mobile phone. "Our researchers have assured us that this site is legitimate and we shall from now on be following it closely. And to the Flock if you are watching, we hope to be hearing from you soon. The time is now six in the evening."  
The Flock were dumbstruck, every bit of their cover had just been picked off by the BBC newsreaders in about thirty seconds of footage.  
"Lets get out of here." Max grabbed Total and cradled him in his arms, much to his dislike and made for the door.  
_Max, go to the taxi rank, there will be a black BMW, get in.  
__And we'll be carted off to God knows where? I don't think so. _She ploughed through the crowds to the exit.  
"Miss Ride, come with us please." A hand rested on her shoulder and around her the Flock was surrounded by men in suits, about 15 of them. Total started to growl a little. For a brief moment Fang looked ready to beat the snot out of the nearest suit but when Jeb Batchelder materialized on Max's arm, he thought better of it.  
"Shall we go Max?" He rested a hand on her other shoulder and steered her toward the car parked in the taxi rank.  
"Do we have much of a choice?" She looked up into her father's face and received his trademark sad smile.  
"If we're not quick no-one on earth is going to have much of choice."

"So, pops, whats the story?" Max had decided to bite for the moment. This kid was big and the entire Flock knew it and if it meant working with Jeb to get to him they would deal. The car went over a deep pothole and they all bounced up and down.  
"Right to the point then." Jeb looked from each of the Flock in turn, they didn't return the smiles. "There is another person out there like you."  
"Really? I didn't notice that." Max turned to the flock. "Anyone else notice?"  
"We don't have time for wise cracks Max, this is serious. This boy is dangerous in more ways then one." Max's eyebrows raised.  
"Most people are dangerous Jeb."  
"This one is, take a look." He took a file from the seat next of him and handed it over. "His name is Aires, and its more than likely he's going to change the world and not for the better. Geneticists found a way to make normal people into recombinant avian lifeforms, Itex stole the research and employed it on him."  
"Whats so bad about that? A world not full of complete jerks and like us." Iggy said. "Sounds good me."  
"Ig, it isn't all that good." Max leafed through the file. "97.4% kill rate? Thats nearly everyone."  
"Kill rate, that doesn't sound good." Fang took the file and began to read it through with The Gasman.  
"The formula isn't perfect, it took months to find a suitable test subject. And if it was released into the atmosphere right now, without an antibody to fight off its deadly effects, 6.6 billion people would be dead in three weeks with our current world population." The car fell silent.  
"Six billion? Everywhere?"  
"Thats not all, those who are kept alive will be like you, but they won't be the same. They'll have their memory's scrambled, they'll be like drones, no will or personality. Thats why Itex want to use it, a world reduced to a handful of people who will do their bidding, able to start from the ground up again. Keep alive those who they want with an antibody and leave the rest to rot. Its an apocalypse of free thought.  
"Not to mention the 97.4% who'll die." Angel muttered miserably.  
"What about us? We're already different." Nudge said.  
"You would survive, you have the genes to fight off the loss of thought and death but how long you'd live in a world of nothing but Itex I don't know. The virus only effects humans, animals won't even notice a thing and Itex has a Atmospheric Cannon to burn off the pollution in the air once they have their 'New World'. It would be like rebooting the world, except humans become something else." The car came to a stop. "Come on. Its time you met him."  
They stepped out into the darkening street that backed the river Thames and stood outside the building with its nondescript archway leading into the lobby, the words "Semper Occultus" carved into the stone above them.  
"Whats that mean?" The Gasman pointed at the words as they passed beneath them.  
"'Always Secret', its a motto." A woman in a trim suit appeared out of nowhere, making Fang jump out of his skin and nearly hit her. She just smiled at them as The Flock took in the woman in her suit and gun holster on her hip, the grip worn smooth with use. "Welcome to Grosvenor Road, MI6 head quarters."

"So who are you?" Max looked the tall woman up and down as they walked down the whitewashed hallway, the maze of hallways designed to keep those inside lost if they tried to escape.  
"I take it you've not seen many Bond movies?" The woman looked over her shoulder at them, not breaking step. "I had quite a like for Ian Flemming, there was some truth in his work with 007, there is always a SIS Advocate. Thats me. You can call me M."  
"Just M?"  
"Yes, its a randomly assigned letter given to the Advocate to keep his or her identity secret. The SIS, MI6 to you, is the most advanced secret service in the world." She turned into a dead end with a single door at the end.  
"What about the CIA?" The Gasman received a pitying smile off M.  
"To be perfectly honest, the less you know about a secret service, the better they tend to be at doing what they were made to do. MI6 is one of 13 devisions, am I right in guessing you don't know that?"  
"No but..."  
"Secret being the operative word here, not many people know that MI6 is the tip of the iceberg. Now, shall we meet our guest?"

I had been stuck in this room for nearly four hours and I was bored rigid. The door on the other side of the room remained stubbornly shut and I was in desperate need of a shower. After waking up in this cell I had been told I was safe and someone would be coming to see me soon. Soon had been and gone, along with my patience. Even if my arm had been put back into its socket and my ankle bandaged, I was still a prisoner in here.  
"Would it hurt for someone to give me some food!" I hammered my fist into the two way mirror but didn't get a response. Failing that I sat down on one of the chairs and took another look at my surroundings. The cell looked like it had been used as an interrogation room and someone had thrown a bed into it for me. A table was bolted to the floor along with the two chairs and the bare concrete walls were far too clean, I could only wonder why this place would need cleaning after a period of 'Interrogation'. The opening of the door made me look up and I stood, trying to look as threatening as possible. The man who entered with a girl my age didn't look very threatening and for a moment I thought about rushing them until I saw a woman on the other side of the door with her hand on a pistol.  
"Don't worry," The man said, raising his hands. "My name is Jeb Batchelder, this is Max. We're here to help."  
"I'm not saying a word until you tell me where my parents are." I growled.  
"To be honest Aires, we don't know. But we're here to help you." Jeb's warm eyes were warm but I could see his hidden agenda like it was dancing the fandango in front of me.  
"Why do you want to help me? So you get a nice warm cuddly feeling inside. And whats this." I went up to the girl, Max he said her name was. "Bring your kids to the asylum day? She's quite pretty, shame you saved none of your own looks." Wow, I could really put them away when I wanted to. One-nil to me.  
"I'm sorry, can we say sexist?"  
"Feisty, how I like my women. so Jeb, buddy. What is your lovely plan that is going to put my life back on track? Some group therapy maybe, a relaxing massage from blonde here?"  
"You'd need a quack." Max sneered.  
"You'd need a bath sister, maybe a dose of fashion sense too." I spat back.  
"You can talk!" Her face was in front of mine in nanoseconds. "Last I saw you were taking a swim in the river."  
"Enough!" Jeb's voice cut through our verbal sparring. "Sit down!" I sat opposite Max and grinned in the most annoying was possible. "Right. Aires, you are not what we call normal." I barked a laugh.  
"Really?" I reached over my shoulder and felt the tip of my wing. "Hmm, that wasn't there last night."  
"When your finished." Jeb looked like he was trying to talk me down. Sooooo not in the mood. "Max is like you and I was part of the team that made you. Now what..." I didn't let him open his mouth.  
"Oh I get it! Your making a little family of freaks. Does putting us to bed at night give you a nice warm feeling inside after you've wreaked our lives? Your own daughter too, some humanitarian."  
"I will never be able to forgive myself for what I have done but I'm trying to put it right." He looked at me with a sad smile. I just sneered, I didn't owe him my sympathy for wrecking my life. "Take your shirt off. Show Max."  
"I think she should, I've been the one locked up in here while you've been outside playing happy family's." The look I got back wasn't promising. "Alright." I stood up and unbuttoned my shirt, tossing it onto the bed and extending my wings. The tips scraped the walls and Max had to duck underneath to look at where they joined my back. I squirmed uncomfortably as her hand traced where the wing met my back and fused with the flesh. She examined each feather and after a while I folded them back in and grabbed my shirt, feeling sufficiently weirded out by Max's inspection.  
"Can you fly yet?" She asked, joining her father again on the other side of the table.  
"I was chased through London by two missiles. Yeah, I can fly." I fumbled with my buttons on my shirt.  
"You learnt to fly in a day?"  
"Pretty much. How long did it take you?" I looked at the window in the wall briefly but all I saw was me.  
"Weeks. What makes you so different?" Max shared her frown with her father.  
"I'm no different from you." I shrugged.  
"We will have time to think about it another time but at the moment Itex it out looking for you. We will need to catch them off guard if we are to catch them off guard."  
"I take it this plan requires my obedience?" I asked. No brainer really.  
"Yes. If you want to stay in our protection. But if the plan works it will plough Itex into the ground. The world at the moment have no idea that you were manipulated by Itex to what you are today and all we need to do is unmask them, the human rights organizations will topple them in weeks and nearly everything about Itex has got something illicit about it. And who else to do the unmasking then the boy the world wants to see." My finger slipped on the button of my shirt.  
"I'm sorry?" I wasn't comforted by the look on Jeb's face and I could tell that this was unpleasant news to Max too.  
"You are going to bring down Itex from the inside out. Publicize their greatest sin and accomplishment. You are going to be the worlds first asylum seeker."  
There was a moment of stunned silence.  
Its never a good idea when they get poetic.


	9. Home Truths

Chapter 9  
Home Truths

"I don't care what it will do to her! Just get that damn child out alive!" There was a pause over the phone as the person on the other end tried to speak. "It is possible you moron, get her to have a go, she designed it. Just get on with it!" Derrick King slammed the phone down on his underling and stood to look out of his office window.  
Everything had backfired on the new Acting Director this week. His bid to recapture Aires had failed miserably and a malfunction in the commander unit had pasted the winged boy all over the news. The incident with the missiles had prompted a full field recall, Itex can't just go and wave its more illicit activity's in the faces of the media. But King had a suspicion, and it wasn't one he liked.  
"Mr Director?" The intercom on his desk buzzed. "Dr ter Borcht has arrived." Ah, stress relief at last.  
"Send him in." The AD sat behind his desk and tried to look nonchalant as two suited men walked in and dumped the limp and bloodied Roland ter Borcht in front of his desk. The guards left and Derrick stood up to look over his desk as the doctor bled onto the pine floor.  
"So Roland, have a nice holiday?" The AD said flatly. Borcht clawed his way up the front of the desk and knelt, his broken nose bleeding onto his designer suit.  
"I...thought...it was.." Several broken teeth didn't help his speech.  
"Over? So you were going to had us over to the UN Security Counsel and watch us burn while you find a nice house, settle down, have kids."  
"It makes no difference now." Borcht murmured. "All of our plans have been destroyed by them"  
"The Avian hybrids. Yes, they do have a habit of cropping back up. But you see Roland." Derrick grabbed the doctors nose and twisted viciously, shattered bone grated around in his skull and he screamed. "We have one last option, don't we? The virus. The one you helped create." He punctuated each sentence with a twist, blood oozing between his fingers. "All we need is the antibody from Aires and we can do what we should have done years ago. That, or we have a plan B." He let Borcht go and rubbed the blood off his hands with a silk handkerchief. "You have one last assignment. Go to the Devil's Backbone station, provide your expertise with the clone. I want to have that half breed born in the next month. Or you will join her in the apocalypse."

I stepped out of the boys dorm and instantly regretted it.  
"Wow, err." Was Max's response. Fang raised a cynical eyebrow and everyone else burst out laughing.  
"I look like a total prat don't I?" I spread my arms, the tailored suit creaking on well starched hems.  
"A bit yeah." Total nodded from the nearest bean bag. "Why do you need a tux for a news report?"  
"Its not a tux, its a suit." I tore off the jacket and threw it over the sofa, leaving just the shirt and trousers.  
"Well I wouldn't mind a well dressed man." Nudge winked at me from the floor.  
"I would too, shame none of us has any fashion sense." Fang said and received a thrown pillow for his troubles.  
The sort of flat they had put us into sat high up in the main section of MI6 HQ in Vauxhall Cross, overlooking the river and the city. The floor to ceiling windows were all fully retractable and bullet proof enough to stop a 9mm round at point blank range. Boys and girls dorms were on each side of the main flat area. A massive flat panel TV was mounted on the wall and perpetually played the news over and over. We hadn't been allowed out while Jeb tried to sort out the media but after everything over the past few days I was glad for a few days rest. The Flock was however ready to do something and cabin fever was setting in. But I felt like I was getting on well with them and I had a friendship with most of them. Fang however wasn't the most accommodating, I'd need to try and iron out relationships with him before I asked Max what had been on my mind for a while.  
The door opened and M looked in.  
"Jeb is waiting for you downstairs." I nodded and stood up.  
"Moment of truth." Max stood up and looked at me curiously. We stood there looking at each other for a moment.  
"Good luck." She passed me my jacket and held my arm for a second. She still had a sort of awkward smile on her face when she turned away. I smiled at the rest of the Flock and headed for the door.  
But I couldn't miss the look of suppressed fury and confusion on Fang's face as I left.

"What was that about?" Angel asked as the door shut behind Aires.  
"I'm not sure." Max was still looking at the door, a slightly worried look on her face. "He's got something on his mind." She looked over at Fang who quickly averted his gaze.  
'_But I can guess what it is'_ she thought.

The news reporter who came in looked somewhat familiar as she sat down on the other side of the desk with her cup of coffee.  
"You were in the park weren't you?" She looked over the top of her cup at me.  
"Yes, you crashed into the police squad when you tried to fly off." I got the feeling I was in trouble for the butterfly strips that covered the large gash on her cheek. Jeb lent in close next to my ear.  
"Its probably best if you don't talk at all, this is going to make a huge difference in our fight against Itex." I frowned at him but said nothing. I thought this was my fight for safety, not Jeb's crusade against Itex.  
"On in 10. Clear the set." The camera men manned their posts and the reporter shoved her cup under the desk out of sight.  
"Good afternoon. I'm Joan Wakefield. With me tonight are Jeb Batchelder, advisor to MI6 and Aires, the avian-human hybrid who was the center of events in London five days ago. It is just Aires isn't it?"  
"Yeah." I nodded, trying to relax and failing miserably.  
"So, Aires. Can you tell us how you are? Your ordeal five days ago doesn't see to have done much."  
"No, I just heal faster than normal humans, I had a sliced ligament in my ankle and cracked ribs but I feel fine." I opened my mouth to continue but Jeb cut across.  
"We believe that we have an idea of who did this to Aires, not to mention possibly hundreds of other hybrids across the world." I looked over at him, his face was hardened, no trace of the smiling man left.  
"And who would that be?" Joan immediately swapped targets.  
"Itexicon."  
"Itex? One of the biggest companies in the world?" She pressed her earphone with a finger as researchers behind the scenes scrambled for information.  
"Several security agency's, including MI6, the Russian FSB and CIA have all been watching Itex closely. There has been reason to worry about some of the companies activity for quite sometime."  
"And you have evidence of this?" Joan was looking skeptical.  
"Your looking at it." Jeb gestured at me but didn't look at me. "This specimen is one of hundreds of recombinant lifeforms bred by Itex." I shrunk back into my seat, I didn't ask to be a show and tell subject.  
"But surely you can't link this child to Itexicon? Its one thing to bring a new form of life into the world, another to bring down a company that supports the economy of every major power in the world." Joan looked at me, this interview was nothing but a publicity stunt and Jeb was the only one talking. This wasn't about the Flock, this was just Jeb's crusade against Itex and we were his evidence.  
"I need some air." I muttered, tearing off the microphone on my jacket and stood up, the camera following my movements as I burst out into the the corridor outside the studio.  
"Aires!" Jeb's panicked voice followed me out as I pounded along the corridor, ploughing over people who didn't move fast enough.  
"I've just realized something Jeb." I yelled over my shoulder but didn't turn round.  
"Aires, we haven't got time for this." A hand grabbed me and instinct kicked in, literally. The roundhouse kick that hit Jeb in the chest sent him flying back down the corridor for at least ten feet. He gulped for air like a fish out of water and for a moment I got just a tiny bit of satisfaction.  
"It was never about us. Was it?" I said. The grown man rolled onto his side and coughed violently.  
"Its always the bigger picture Aires." Jeb gasped between gulps of air. "It has to be."  
"Thought so." I turned my back on the traitor and headed for the stairs, climbing three at a time before coming up onto the roof of the BBC. The leading edge of the building faced toward the river, but I never got lost, not now. I threw my suit jacket into the gravel of the roof, releasing 14 feet of tan wings into the air, the edge not far away and then space. Glorious freedom.  
The wind was funneled up the front of the building and shot me high into the air over London, barely having to work my wings as the wind carried me up into the chilly, clear air. I'd had enough of publicity and politics, leave Jeb to sort out Itex, but I wasn't going to become a zoo exhibit and be his 'proof'. Raptor vision picked out the people on the pavement below shielding their eyes from the setting sun to look up at me. I banked round and headed for the river. It was about time to set the record straight with the Flock.

The window was open when I passed the front of our makeshift flat. I scad to a halt just inside and slammed the window shut, trying to warm myself up from the bitter cold outside.  
"Guys?" I walked toward the boys door and looked in. A pair of hands grabbed me and pulled me inside.  
"Alright kiddo, lets chat." Fang's low voice could have sliced steel. "You think I don't know your little game, but I do." I drew my arms up and smashed down on his wrists but instead of breaking his grip my shirt tore apart.  
"Getting a bit paranoid Fang?" I raised my fists into a judo position. Six years spent having the snot kicked out of me on the judo mats looked like it was going to come in useful. "You've spent too much time on the run." He rushed me and I barely had time to raise my arms before a forearm collided with my head. Each hit was enough to break any normal persons collar bone. "Go on then!" I skipped past him and round the bunk beds in the dorm. "What is my genius plan that I don't even know about?"  
"I know, thats what matters. I've seen how you look at her!" I raised my eyebrows and had to dive over the bed to escape Fang's reach.  
"Who?" I clambered back up.  
"Max! You want her and then you'll tear her heart out and... What?" Fang's face creased over as laughter rose out of the bottom of my shoes.  
"You have....to be kidding? You think that...oh God." I doubled over with laughter. Fang stared at me and the door banged open.  
"What the Hell's going on in here?" Max stood in the door, the rest of the Flock looked round. Total padded inside and looked between us.  
"Smells like an overload of testosterone to me." He said sniffing.  
"I'd say. Ha!" I wiped a tear from my eye ad stood straight. "You guys need to have a chat, seriously. Tell you what Fang, I'll be best man!" I ducked round the corner as a fist swooped toward me but he pulled it at the last moment, letting me run from the room, cackling impishly.

"Out, big kid talk." Max slammed the door of the dorm after shooing away the other kids and turned to Fang as he stood looking unusually awkward. "Well, for once I agree with Total. You boys need to sort your heads out. Now." Max's words sounded like they were coming from a school teacher. "What was this about? You and Air have hardly been chums since he appeared."  
"I don't trust him. All of a sudden there's another one like us out of no-where and we're being 'protected'. It sticks Max." Max's face didn't change at all, still the unconvinced glare.  
"Fang. Don't feed me that line. Angel hasn't felt anything from Aires, we know he's as scared of us as we are of him."  
"Well Angel might be wrong." Fang muttered, avoiding her gaze.  
"It was over me wasn't it?" Fang's mouth opened to protest but Max cut over him. "Angel told me the second you started your little chat. For God's sake Fang, how the Hell did you work that one out? You and your testosterone fueled head obviously. Aires isn't even interested in me, he's been asking me if he can come with us. Thats why we've been talking." Fang deflated like a burst balloon.  
"I....didn't realize." His voice was hardly audible.  
"No, I bet you didn't." Max stepped up next to Fang, her face inches from his. "I love you Fang, about time we faced that. Your the only person in my life I can share that with."

"Are they kissing yet?" I asked Angel quietly. She raised a finger and shut her eyes.  
"I love you Fang, about time we faced up to that." Angel's mouth moved but it was Max's voice, mimicking what was happening in the other room. "Your the only person in my life I can share that with." Angel's face cringed for a moment. "Yuk, yeah, their kissing."  
"Yes!" I quietly punched the air. "Thanks Angel. Your the best." I gave the girl a quick hug just as the dorm door opened and Max stood dazed.  
"I did it." She murmured in a tiny voice.  
"See! Aires, marriage councilor for mutant teens, I should have a business card." I beamed at her. "Well done Max. I must admit that last line was a bit corny though. 'Your the only person in my life I can share that with.' I thought you were going to burst into song." She wiped her lips and punched my arm softly.  
"Don't push it, thanks for the counseling Dr Air. Anything else I need to know about the mysterious life of love I'm now leading."  
"Always use protection." The look I got would have melted my eye out my sockets. "Its up to you now, don't rush and don't let him rule your life. And I get the feeling Fang likes being beaten down sometimes."  
"I'm not going to give him a chance." She chuckled and headed over to the rest of the Flock. I stood looking at them for a moment before joining them.  
I noticed something as I sat down next to Iggy. They no longer looked over at me like an intruder, someone not meant to be there, but with a smile and almost instantly we were laughing together, chatting, just normal kids. After a while Fang came and sat down next to Max and nodded at me, a rare smile on his face and we began chatting again, planning where to go next once all this was over, trading stories of the Flock's journeys to the Antarctic and The Institute and the storm in Miami. For a moment, just a moment, I looked around me and saw the tips of wings poking over shoulders and didn't think these kids were different. Because we were the same, I was another kid lost and found again among others like me.

A Flock.  
A family.  
A family I was now part of.

_You swore to me he was to be kept safe._ The Voice in Jeb's head cut through his thoughts like a knife.  
_We can't discuss this now, its too late. He's being uncooperative. There is nothing more I can do. I'll be coming for you soon.  
You swore Batchelder, you swore you'd protect him.  
I'm sorry. We can't wait.  
__Well we might have another problem. Max's clone is here. _Jeb's hands balled into fists. _And she's pregnant. Heavily, their giving her some kind of formula to increase the baby's growth.  
Do we know who the father is?  
No, but I have an idea.  
You know what you need to do then.  
I will not kill her, if we can save this child it might be the key to-  
__You are to kill that child! _There was a long silence between the two minds.  
_You have changed Jeb, you've become the thing you meant to destroy. I'll speak with you when I know where I am. Goodbye Jeb._ He felt the other mind leave his and shut away. He felt alone in his room, his plan was crumbling around him and now she had left him. He dropped his head into his hands and shut his eyes.  
97.4 percent, the figure kept screaming in his mind. 97.4 percent


	10. Red Dawn

Chapter 10  
Red Dawn

That night we decided to order out diner. So when M walked in with about ten bags full of Chinese she wasn't happy.  
"This is a secret service building; you can't just order food to the door." She said an overly serious look on her face.  
"You didn't need to kill the delivery boy did you?" Iggy said round a mouthful of spring roll. "What was it? 'I could pay you, but I'd have to kill you.'" M marched out of the room as the rest of us rocked with laughter.  
"That's a good one for you Ig. You should have a stand up act." Fang shot back.  
"Nice to know you think so, as you're a master of wit yourself." Iggy's aim was perfect as the other half of his spring roll hit Fang between the eyes.  
"Now boys, play nicely." Max said, loading up Angel's plate with sweet and sour chicken. "Where's Total?"  
"In our dorm," Nudge sighed. "He's been trying to jump off the top bunk all day." On cue there was a muffled thud and a curse from the girl's dorm. The door opened and the winged dog trotted in, trying to look as dignified as possible.  
"Don't…say….a word." He growled and sat up next to Angel. We didn't pursue the matter but Angel smoothed down some of the feathers on his ruffled wings.  
For the next few minutes the only sounds were the soundtrack of 7 bird kids and a dog devouring their meals.  
"Right." Max picked up her glass of water and hit it with a spoon. "Announcement! Oi! Listen!" Nudge sucked in the last of her noodles noisily and we sat looking up at Max. "It gives me great pleasure."  
"To accept this award from the academy." The Gasman supplied his personal brand of humour and we all chuckled until Max smacked him on he head with her spoon.  
"To announce that yet another friend will be joining us on our journeys." There was a round of clapping and I gave a little bow. "Aires has been with us for only a few days but in that time he has been-"  
"Get to the point!" Iggy yawned.  
"I've rehearsed this for days, and you're going to suffer it. So shut it." Max retorted and cleared her throat again to continue.  
"Well we're definitely suffering." Iggy laughed.  
"Is it really that bad?" We all nodded. "Ok, basically, welcome to our family."  
"Hear hear!" Fang raised his glass of coke and as did the rest of the Flock.  
"Thank you." I looked to all of them in turn. "But just one thing. No more big speeches."  
"Alright." Max sighed, "I'd been planning that one for days."  
"Didn't make it any better." Nudge admitted.  
"Ok, you can clean up then." Max thrust her plate at me. "Consider this your induction."  
"No justice in the world." I scooped up the polythene plates and threw them in the bin, Angel and The Gasman picking up the empty tin trays. In a few minutes we were all sitting back around the table and Fang had produced a pack of cards.  
"You playing?" Angel asked. Her smile didn't conceal the glint in her eyes.  
"With a mind reader? I'll pass." I settled down on a beanbag next to the window. It was nearly four in the morning and on the horizon there was a pink glow that was rising to a bloody red.  
"You alright?" Max sat next to me. "You look a little…" She tapped the side of her head.  
"I'm just thinking about stuff." I said, still looking out on the horizon and the rising sun.  
"Your mother?" I looked over at her briefly.  
"I haven't seen her since we split up in he woods. She might be dead for all I know." I sighed.  
"Well, we've got nothing better to do. We'll help you find her. That little speech wasn't hollow. You're as much a member of this Flock as any of us now, if you need help you'll get it."  
Max held my shoulder and for a moment I saw a tiny bit of me in the wiry smile on her face.  
"Thanks, I'm not sure where to start though." I shrugged and looked back out over the city as it slowly woke up.  
"The cabin in the woods, you might find a clue there." She offered. "That's where we'll go first. If Jeb lets us."  
"Not likely, I get the impression my little stunt dented his ego a bit." I muttered. "But who says we need permission?"  
"Now you're thinking the right way." Max grinned. I nodded and looked out over the river, the sky now blazing red with the sun just filtering through the skyline. As my eyes raked the sky I spotted a tiny anomaly in the red veil that covered the clouds, like someone had dropped something through the clouds leaving a hole. I traced the line of cloud down between two of the buildings on the opposite side of the river and looked hard at the trail of vapour that plotted the course of a long tube with a bright blue nose cone. Heading right for us.  
"Everyone out! NOW!" I grabbed Angel as I passed, the room becoming impossibly long in my mind as the door zipped away from us while the missile raced toward Vauxhall Cross, only glass and air between us and it. The Flock wordlessly dropped everything and went pelting for the door. We slipped round the corner and as we reached the stairs the building rocked.  
The wall that had backed onto our flat blew out inches behind us as we entered the stairwell, sending slithers of Breezeblock like daggers into the other wall where they stuck fast, narrowly missing Nudge and nearly tearing her to shreds. The shockwave followed in a compressed wall of air, throwing us against the far wall like dolls. My eardrums popped and I felt my collar bone snap like a brittle piece of spaghetti.  
"Report!" Max's voice was the first thing I heard once my ears stopped ringing like church bells.  
"Alive." The Gasman coughed as acrid smoke began to fill the stairs.  
"Here."  
"Me too."  
"I've got Angel." I winced and sat up and heard a small yip as I sat on something furry and wriggling. "And Total."  
"All here." Fang's calm voice came from next to me.  
"Who's hurt?"  
"Just me. I'll live." I rested a hand on the broken bone and staggered to my feet in the pitch black. "Lights have gone."  
"This place is filling with smoke, down the stairs." I found the handrail and we began down the stairs toward cleaner air. About two floors from the bottom we heard shooting. Max tried to open on of the side doors leading off the stairs but it was locked.  
"The building locks down in the event of invasion." Nudge said. "I felt them start the program a while ago."  
"Great. Any where not locked out?" Max asked the technopath.  
"The front door maybe?" I suggested. "Seems like where they've got in."  
"Ok, front door option." We began heading further down toward the lobby, the air above us slowly filling with poisonous smoke. On the other side of the lobby door we heard the last of the shooting finish.  
"Don't." Angel grabbed my arm as I went to open the door. "He's waiting for you."  
"Who Angel?" I let go of the door knob.  
"Him." She whispered fearfully. "He's so angry. He's worse than The Director. He's evil. King."  
I felt a black pit form at the bottom of my stomach, filling my innards with fire. He hurt me. He hurt Mum. He had been my father for 14 years of my life, not now.  
"Wait here." I murmured and took hold of the door knob.  
"Air, what are you doing?" I looked at Max over my shoulder, but the hole in my stomach had become something new, an all consuming rage and I could feel it like it was eating at my soul, banishing ethics and worries and honing ever sense to laser perfection. Her words seemed slowed and sluggish and beneath her speech I heard her pulsing heart within her breast. I didn't feel the pain or hurt anymore; I was emotionless apart from this rage that consumed me.  
"Don't come out. Don't get in my way." I opened he door, leaving the Flock in the stairwell.  
The shooting started immediately but every round blew past me, hitting the wall and missing me by miles as I twisted and swerved. Adrenaline flooded my system in a tsunami, rendering every thing at a snails pace. I ran into the lobby, dived over an upturned plant pot and encountered my first target. There was nothing distinguishing about this man, he was the kind of person you would pass on the street and not remember his face but the L98 A2 rifle in his hands was something I would remember. His mouth opened and the weapon came up in slow motion. My fingers closed on the barrel of the rifle and I snapped it up, breaking the man's nose with the butt and jerking it from his grip. I turned the rifle round at I strode along the wall, bullets following me like angry bees.  
My hand cradled the butt plate to my shoulder and I re-cocked the weapon as I ducked for cover. The shooting stopped and the sound of empty magazines being replaced reached my ears.  
My turn.  
In a fluid movement I identified nine men fiddling with catches on various guns and brought my gun to bare. One of them managed to look up fearfully before I shot him between the eyes. Nine bodies hit the cold granite of the lobby floor. It ad taken a matter of seconds to extinguish those lives and strangely enough the fact my bullets had brought them down didn't bring disgust or horror at murdering another, only a cold satisfaction that soothed the fury in my heart.  
"Ruthless." A light and matter of fact voice came from the door. A silhouette formed in the light from outside. I aimed my gun at the form of Derrick King. "I wouldn't try that Aires, vengeance rarely comes without cost." The shadow gestured behind me. Max was on her knees, staring ahead, away from the rifle aimed at her head. The rest of the Flock was standing behind her, Angel was crying.  
My gun dropped from between my fingers and hit the cold floor, my rage following it.  
"Berserker blood. An interesting ability." King walked along the lobby floor to within a few feet of me. "Cavemen had it when we were all so close to death, the heart rate increases, adrenaline floods the brain and you become capable of anything to stay alive." His head cocked to one side as he examined me. "You were a good son."  
"I am not your son." I hissed. "I won't have the Devil for a father."  
"If I'm the Devil, and you're a murderer. Sounds like we are well suited for each other." I heard someone move behind me and the click of a safety catch. I heard Max suppress a choked sob.  
"Go to Hell you bastard." King's face didn't change.  
"A shame. Kill him." The muzzle of the rifle pressed against the base of my neck. The metal was warm to my skin but its intent was icy cold, all I could see was my ex-father's face and rage filled me up again. Nothing mattered anymore, my blood boiled and I lunged for him, intending to snap his neck.

I heard a girl's scream.

A sudden explosion.

And then…

Nothing.


	11. Epilogue

Epilogue

"This is case number 121JB." The doctor murmured into the microphone on the lapel of her jacket. "Subject name: Aires King. 14 years of age, white, British. Cause of death is a gunshot wound to the base of the skull which severed the spinal cord. Death was instantaneous." She sighed and brushed back some hair off the boy's dead face.  
"Autopsy authorised by Her Majesty's Secret Service to ascertain clues which will lead to arrest of guilty party."  
She slipped on a set of latex gloves and reached beneath the bodies back, her fingers brushed his wings and she shivered. She had offered to take this assignment but now she wondered why.  
"You must have been some flyer kid." She gently opened one wing and examined it. Blood had stained the top feathers crimson and they stuck together in clumps, the entire wing couldn't fit in the room. She replaced the unnatural limb and turned her attention to the rest of the body. "Broken collar bone, various grazes to the chest and arms." Her hand traced around his blackened lips. "Evidence of smoke inhalation." She moved round to the back of the boy's head and felt the tiny entrance wound at the base of his skull. "No exit wound, the bullet must be lodged in the neck or spine."  
She reached over and picked the tweezers from the tray. "Retrieving the bullet." She reached under the body's head and with a hard tug she pulled the squashed round from Aires' spinal column. "5.56 calibre, constant with the L98 A2 rifles used in the assault." She turned her back to the body and dropped the squashed bullet into an evidence bag.  
_Crack  
_The doctor froze. Then looked over her shoulder at the body.  
"No way." She walked back up to the table and stared at the body, resting a hand on the previously broken collar bone. The bulge in the skin had vanished, like it had never been there. Across the boy's chest, wounds were closing and knitting back together. His neck twisted suddenly and the doctor yelped in fright as the body bucked and shook on the table, sending the trolley flying along with surgical tools and evidence. His hair stood on end and his mouth opened in a silent scream, eyes rolling in his sockets like roulette balls beneath flickering lids.  
His lungs filled with air and he sat bolt upright as if electrocuted, panting heavily as he sat shivering on the table and looking around with wide frightened eyes.

He was alive!

The Flight of Aires will continue in one month under the new story:

The Flight of Aires: Avenging Angel


End file.
